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INAUGURATION 


REV.  BENJAMIN  B.  WARFIELD,  D.D., 


PROFESSOR 


DIDACTIC    AND    POLEMIC    THEOLOGY. 


NEW  YORK: 

ANSON    D.    F.    RANDOLPH    &    COMPANY. 

i8S8. 


COPYRIGHT,    lS88,    BY 

Anson  D.  F.  Randolph  &  Company. 


PRESS    OF 

EDWARD    0.    JENKINS'    SONS, 

NEW    »OSK. 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


The  Rev.  Benjamin  B.  Warfield,  D.D.,  was  elected 
Professor  of  Didactic  and  Polemic  Theology  in  Princeton 
Seminary,  at  a  special  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Directors, 
held  in  February,  1887.  His  formal  inauguration  was 
postponed  at  his  own  request,  and  took  place  by  appoint- 
ment, on  Tuesday,  May  8,  1888,  at  11.30  o'clock,  in  the 
First  Presbyterian  Church  of  Princeton.  The  order  of 
exercises  on  this  occasion  was  as  follows :      "" 

Hymn. 

Prayer,  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Philip  Schaff,  Professor  in  Union  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  New  York. 

Administration  of  the  Pledge  to  the  New  Professor,  by 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Gos.man,  President  of  the  Board  of  Directors. 

The  Charge,  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  James  T.  Leftwich,  Pastor  of  the 
First  Presbyterian  Church,  Baltimore. 

The  Inaugural  Address,  by  Professor  Warfield. 

Benediction, 


The  Charge  and  Inaugural  Address  are  here  published  by  order 
of  the  Board  of  Directors. 


THE    CHARGE. 

BY 

THE    REV.   JAMES   T.   LEFTWICH,   D.D. 


CHARGE. 


My  dear  Brother: 

It  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  welcome  you  to  the  Profes- 
sorship in  this  Seminary  to  which  you  have  been  called.  In 
doing  so,  by  a  very  natural  train  of  associations  I  am  re- 
minded of  the  illustrious  men  who  have  preceded  you  here 
in  the  chair  of  Theology,  who,  having  finished  their  labors, 
have  entered  into  rest.  First,  in  the  order  of  time,  was  Dr. 
Archibald  Alexander,  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  term,  not 
involving  inspiration,  a  Seer,  whose  swift  intuitions  so  often 
anticipated  the  conclusions,  which,  by  rigorous  processes  of 
Logic,  he  subsequently  reached  only  to  verify  and  confirm 
them.  Then  came  Dr.  Charles  Hodge,  the  great  scholar  as 
well  as  thinker,  whose  vast  erudition  was  digested  into 
stately  volumes,  which  stand  on  the  shelves  of  our  libraries 
side  by  side  with  the  ponderous  works  of  Augustine,  Cal- 
vin, Turretin,  and  Edwards;  of  them  all,  perhaps,  the  most 
widely  read  in  our  day,  at  least  among  English-speaking 
peoples.  It  was  every  way  fitting  that  such  a  father  as  he 
should  be  succeeded,  in  his  labors  and  in  his  honors,  by 
such  a  son  as  the  late  lamented  Dr.  Archibald  Alexander 
Hodge ;  a  man  of  brilliant  genius,  in  spirit  simple  as  that 
little  child  whom,  to  illustrate  the  nature  of  true  greatness, 
Jesus  once  set  in  the  midst  of  His  wondering  disciples; 
while  in  intellect  he  was  a  giant  in  the  power  with  which 
he  grasped  and  wielded  the  sword  of  the  Spirit  which  is  the 
Word  of  God.  In  the  power  to  formulate  truth,  to  draw 
with  unerring  accuracy  the  fine  line  that  at  once  includes 
all  that  belongs  to  its  integrity,  and  excludes  all  that  is  for- 
eign and   extraneous,  he    had    no   superior,  I   had  almost 


viii  Charge. 

said  he  had  no  peer  in  the  Church  in  his  day.  In  his  "  Out- 
hnes  of  Theology"  may  be  found  definitions,  of  which  it  is 
no  extravagance  to  affirm  that  they  have  never  been  sur- 
passed, if,  indeed,  they  have  ever  been  equalled,  since  the 
Westminster  Divines  closed  their  sessions  in  Jerusalem 
Chamber,  It  is  said  that  as  a  young  rustic,  who  himself 
afterwards  became  a  celebrated  painter,  stood  gazing  with 
rapt  admiration  at  one  of  the  splendid  creations  of  Cor- 
reggio,  the  artistic  spirit  which,  till  then,  had  slumbered  in 
his  nature,  suddenly  awoke  ;  when,  in  the  joyous  conscious- 
ness of  his  new-born  powers,  he  exclaimed  :  "  I,  too,  shall  be 
Correggio."  And  I  can  desire  no  better  fortune  for  this 
Seminary,  at  least  in  the  department  of  Theology,  than 
that,  while  preserving  entire  your  personal  gifts,  you  should 
at  the  same  time  so  contemplate  the  examples  of  the  emi- 
nent teachers  who  have  preceded  you,  as  to  imbibe  all  that 
was  loftiest  in  their  spirit,  and  reproduce  all  that  was  best 
in  their  methods.  You  will  permit  me  to  remind  you  that 
the  Board  of  Directors  conferred  on  you  no  ordinary'  dis- 
tinction when,  looking  abroad  over  our  great  Church,  they 
fixed  their  eyes  on  you,  as  of  all  her  sons  the  fittest,  per- 
haps, to  inherit  the  mantle  of  these  ascended  Prophets.  I 
desire  to  congratulate  you  ;  and  I  desire  to  congratulate  the 
Directors  that,  in  the  very  free  expression  of  opinion  which 
your  election  has  elicited,  there  has  been  heard,  as  yet,  not 
so  much  as  a  whisper  of  dissent  in  any  quarter ;  the  entire 
Church  afifixing  to  the  wisdom  of  your  appointment  the 
seal  of  its  unqualified  sanction.  The  high  scholarship  which 
marked  throughout  your  career  as  a  student  in  the  Semi- 
nary, the  special  studies  in  which  your  faculties  were  dis- 
ciplined during  the  entire  term  of  your  residence  at  Alle- 
gheny, together  with  the  valuable  contributions  already 
made  by  your  pen  to  our  current  Theological  literature,  are 
construed  as  so  many  pledges  that,  by  the  blessing  of  God 
on  your  efforts,  you  will  not  disappoint  the  very  high  ex- 
pectations which  your  preferment  has  excited.  And  yet  so 
responsible  is  the  ofificc  of  Professor  of  Theology  in  such  a 


Charge.  ix 

Seminary  as  Princeton,  and  so  tremendous  are  the  interests 
which  swing  pivoted  on  your  faithful  discharge  of  its  func- 
tions, that  the  Directors  are  not  at  Hberty  to  omit  from  the 
ceremony  of  your  induction  the  Charge  that  is  customary 
on  such  occasions. 

While  it  will  be  your  office  to  teach  truth, — and  truth, 
too,  of  infinite  importance, — it  will  not  be  your  duty  to 
teach  all  truth.  For  truth  is  coextensive  with  reality  itself, 
of  which  it  is  always  the  faithful  exponent.  God  has  not 
called  you,  nor  indeed  has  He  called  any  man,  to  be  an 
expositor  of  all  truth.  Even  in  the  domain  of  Theology, 
the  division  of  labor  which  obtains  here  as  it  does  else- 
where, and  which  grows  more  and  more  minute  as  the 
world  advances  in  knowledge,  will  confine  your  efforts  to 
a  single  department, — "  The  Science  of  Didactic  and  Po- 
lemic Theology."  I  say  Science  ;  for  if  facts,  and  inferences 
from  facts  logically  drawn  and  systematically  arranged, 
constitute  Science  ;  and  if  Science  rises  in  dignity  with  the 
value  and  importance  of  its  object-matter,  then  indeed 
must  Theology,  treating  as  it  does  of  God,  of  man,  and  of 
their  involved  relations,  be  not  only  a  Science,  but  of  all 
Sciences  the  Queen. 

The  source  from  which  you  are  to  draw  the  materials  of 
your  Theology  is  the  Scriptures ;  constituting,  as  they  do, 
the  only  infallible  and  all-sufficient  Rule  of  faith  and  prac- 
tice. While  it  is  true  that  it  has  pleased  God  to  make  a 
natural  revelation  of  Himself;  partly  in  the  external  world 
around  us,  partly  in  the  course  of  history  behind  us,  and 
partly  in  these  living  spirits  within  us,  the  Scriptures  gather 
up  into  themselves  all  these  scattered  disclosures  and  utter 
them  afresh  to  mankind ;  completing  all  and  crowning  all 
with  a  glory  that  is  all  their  own, — The  revelation  of  saving 
grace. 

While  you  are  to  teach  the  truths  of  the  Bible,  you  are 
to  teach  these  truths  as  they  are  construed  and  reduced  to 
system  in  the  Confession  and  Catechisms  of  the  Westminster 
Assembly.      The   outcry   against   Creeds   and  Systems  of 


X  Charge. 

Theology  was  never  louder,  perhaps,  than  at  this  very  hour. 
The  old  indictment  still  bristles  all  over  with  the  old  counts. 
It  is  urged  that  they  impugn  the  sufficiency  of  Scripture  as 
the  Rule  of  faith  and  practice,  stifle  the  spirit  of  honest 
inquiry,  fetter  faculties  that  should  be  left  free  in  the  pur- 
suit of  truth,  and  impede,  if  they  do  not  arrest  progress  in 
the  noblest  study  on  which  the  mind  of  man  can  be  exer- 
cised. Without  stopping  to  consider  these  specifications 
in  detail,  it  is  a  sufficient  reply  to  the  general  charge  that 
system  in  Theology,  as  in  every  branch  of  inquiry,  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  appease  one  of  the  profoundest,  one  of 
the  most  importunate  cravings  of  the  human  soul.  Man  is 
never  at  ease  until  he  has  found  the  one  in  the  many,  until 
he  has  reduced  the  multiform  in  fact  to  the  uniform  in  idea. 
His  ear,  if  finely  strung,  suffers  torture  until  the  various 
sounds,  proceeding  from  the  different  instruments  in  a  great 
orchestra,  blend  in  a  stream  of  perfect  harmony.  As  he 
walks  abroad  among  the  scenes  of  nature,  the  emotion  of 
beauty  refuses  to  rise  to  its  full  height,  until  he  has  gathered 
up  into  the  unity  of  his  complex  view  the  objects  dispersed 
in  the  landscape  before  him.  The  scientific  mind  of  the 
great  Newton  could  not  rest  until,  rising  from  the  ordinary 
phenomena  transpiring  in  the  world  around  him,  he  reached 
at  length  on  the  heights  of  speculation  the  sublime  gener- 
alization which  holds  in  its  grasp  the  material  universe. 
And  so,  as  he  goes  forth  into  the  field  of  Revelation,  the 
Theologian  cannot  be  satisfied  until  he  has  gathered  up  the 
disjecta  membra  of  truth  that  lie  strewn  around  him,  and 
has  articulated  them  into  a  body  of  Divinity  that,  to  his 
eye  at  least,  is  harmonious,  symmetrical,  complete. 

It  is  only  through  system  in  Theology  that  we  rise  to 
knowledge  in  its  highest  form.  A  doctrine  must  be  com- 
plemented, must  be  qualified,  must  be  balanced  by  its  cor- 
relates, if  truth  is  to  appear  in  its  integrity.  How  beauti- 
fully was  this  illustrated  in  our  Lord's  temptation  in  the 
wilderness.  It  is  written,  as  Satan  urged,  "  He  shall  give  his 
angels  charge  over  thee,  to  keep  thee  in  all  thy  ways ;  they 


Charge.  xi 

shall  bear  thee  up  in  their  hands  lest  at  any  time  thou  dash 
thy  foot  against  a  stone."  But  it  is  also  written,  as  our  Lord 
replied,  "Thou  shalt  not  tempt  the  Lord  thy  God."  It  is 
in  the  complex  produced  by  combining  the  two  half  truths 
that  the  truth  emerges  as  a  whole. 

It  is  easy  to  show  that  Confessions  of  faith  condition  the 
progress  in  Theology,  which  it  is  complained  that  they  im- 
pede. The  contents  of  the  Bible  have  been  distributed  into 
Theology,  Anthropology,  Soteriology,  Ecclesiology,  and 
Eschatology ;  and  Klieforth  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that 
it  has  pleased  God  to  assign  each  of  these  branches  to  the 
Church  in  that  land  and  in  that  age,  in  which  it  will  be 
best  qualified  to  develop  it.  Accordingly,  Theology  fell  to 
the  lot  of  the  Greek  Church,  which  embodied  the  results  of 
its  long  and  painful  researches  in  the  Nicene  and  Athanasian 
Symbols.  After  garnering  the  sheaves  reaped  from  the 
field  of  Theology,  the  reapers  were  at  liberty  to  enter  in 
their  order  the  fields  that  remained,  as  one  after  another 
they  grew  white  unto  the  harvest.  If  they  had  failed  to  do 
this,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  fruits  of  the  toils  of  centuries 
would  have  been  lost  to  the  Church  and  the  world.  On 
such  a  plan,  progress  in  Theology  would  have  been  out  of 
the  question.  What  Macaulay  says  of  the  Ancient  Philos- 
ophy would  be  equally  true  of  Theology.  The  "  Ancient 
Philosophy,"  says  he,  was  a  "  tread-mill  and  not  a  path. 
It  was  made  up  of  revolving  questions,  of  controversies 
that  were  always  returning  again.  There  was  no  accumu- 
lation of  truth,  no  heritage  of  truth  acquired  by  the  labor 
of  one  generation  and  bequeathed  to  another,  to  be  trans- 
mitted again  with  large  additions  to  a  third.  Where  this 
Philosophy  was  in  the  days  of  Cicero,  there  it  continued  to 
be  in  the  days  of  Seneca,  and  there  it  continued  to  be  in 
the  days  of  Faverinus.  There  was  every  trace  of  intel- 
lectual cultivation  except  a  harvest.  There  was  plenty  of 
ploughing  and  harrowing  and  reaping,  but  the  garners  con- 
tained nothing  but  smut  and  stubble." 

As  to  the  sense  in  which  our  Articles  of  Faith  are  sub- 


xii  Charge. 

scribed  there  arc  three  distinct  views.  The  extreme  posi- 
tions never  came  into  sharper  conflict,  perhaps,  than  during 
the  great  controversy  which,  in  the  year  1741,  rent  in  twain 
the  original  Synod  of  Philadelphia.  The  Old  Side,  with  ex- 
treme strictness,  insisted  on  an  ipsissima  verba  subscription ; 
a  yoke  which  neither  they  nor  their  fathers  before  them  had 
been  able  to  bear.  The  New  Side,  with  extreme  laxity, 
were  no  less  strenuous  in  maintaining  that  the  Subscription 
extends  only  to  substance  of  Doctrine ;  a  phrase,  which, 
like  the  tent  which  the  fairy  presented  in  a  nut-shell  to 
Prince  Ahmed,  may  be  easily  expanded  until  it  shall  include 
all  shades  of  Theological  opinion,  from  the  straitest  Augus- 
tinianism  on  the  one  hand  to  the  baldest  Pelagianism  on  the 
other.  The  true  view  lies  at  the  middle  point  between 
these  extremes,  and  requires  subscription  to  our  Symbols  as 
containing  the  System  of  Doctrine  taught  in  the  Scriptures. 
Subscription  in  the  ipsissima  verba  sense  is  bondage.  Sub- 
scription in  the  "  for  substance  of  doctrine  "  sense  is  license. 
Subscription  in  the  Systematic  sense  is  freedom  regulated 
by  law,  which  is  the  only  liberty  worthy  of  the  name. 

Many  present  can  easily  recall  the  period  in  our  National 
history  when  grave  Senators  attempted  to  vindicate  their 
conduct  in  retaining  their  seats  in  Congress ;  and,  at  the 
same  time,  violating  their  oath  to  support  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  on  the  ground  that  it  contained  pro- 
visions which  they  could  not  in  conscience  observe.  And 
this  ethical  heresy  has  crept  into  the  bosom  of  the  Church ; 
where.  Ministers  of  Religion,  on  precisely  the  same  plea, 
would  fain  justify  themselves  in  assailing  the  very  Doctrines 
they  are  under  vows  to  defend.  Let  the  supremacy  of  con- 
science be  acknowledged  at  all  times  and  in  all  things.  At 
the  same  time,  no  man  is  at  liberty  to  accept,  or  accepting, 
to  retain  an  oflice,  knowing  that  it  will  precipitate  a  conflict 
between  the  mandate  of  his  conscience  and  the  fulfillment 
of  his  oath.  Let  the  Senator  be  loyal  to  his  conscience, 
never  faltering  for  a  moment  or  swerving  by  a  hair,  in  his 
allegiance.     But  let  him  at  the  same  time  resign  his  seat  in 


Charge.  xiii 

Congress,  and  so  absolve  himself  from  the  obligation  of  his 
oath.  And  if  in  the  Providence  of  God  it  should  ever  fall 
out  that  you  can  no  longer  subscribe,  and  subscribe  ex  aimno, 
the  Doctrinal  standards  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  ;  then, 
at  once  and  on  the  spot,  restore  inviolate  to  the  Board  of 
Directors,  the  trust  they  have  confided  to  your  honor. 

In  requiring  you  to  subscribe  our  Confession,  I  am  per- 
suaded that  we  impose  on  you  no  hardship.  St.  Simon  tells 
us  that,  like  a  pendulum  in  its  arc,  the  world  in  its  progress 
is  ever  swinging  between  periods  that  are  organic  and  periods 
that  are  critical.  It  is  in  one  of  the  critical  ages  that  God 
has  cast  our  lot.  It  is  an  age  when,  in  every  department  of 
speculation  and  of  action,  the  New  is  struggling  to  supplant 
the  Old.  It  is  an  age  when  the  eye  is  armed  with  the  micro- 
scope and  the  hand  with  the  scalpel.  It  is  an  age  when 
multitudes  are  refusing  to  listen  to  the  message  which  the 
Angel  brings  to  us  from  the  skies,  because  of  their  disgust 
at  a  few  particles  of  dust  which,  contracted  in  his  flight,  are 
detected  on  his  wings.  It  is  an  age  when  hand  in  hand 
with  the  Schoolmaster,  the  Reviser  is  abroad  in  the  land. 

And  yet,  in  this  the  most  critical  of  the  critical  ages, 
the  instrument  in  which  the  Presbyterian  Church  confesses 
her  Faith  has  stood  more  than  a  hundred  years  as 
unmoved,  as  unchanged  as  the  rock  Gibraltar.  Aye,  so 
serenely  has  the  faith  of  the  Church  reposed  on  the  bosom 
of  her  noble  Confession  that  only  recently  has  been  started 
the  question  as  to  the  mode  in  which  it  may  be  constitution- 
ally amended.  Indeed,  in  such  perplexity  is  this  whole  sub- 
ject involved,  that  two  of  our  most  gifted  Divines  have 
entered  the  arena  as  the  respective  champions  of  the  two 
opposite  views  between  which  the  Church  is  divided.  And 
now  that,  like  an  indulgent  mother,  the  Church  has  had 
compassion  on  her  disconsolate  sons;  and,  Princeton  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding,  has  licensed  them  to  correct  the 
error  of  their  earlier  years  by  marrying  the  sisters  of  their 
deceased  wives,  is  there  not  good  ground  for  the  hope  that 
in  the  Articles  that  are  left  to  us,  still  like  the  rock  Gibraltar, 


xiv  Charge. 

our  venerable  Confession  will  survive  unchanged  the  shocks 
of  at  least  another  century. 

Passing  to  the  manner  of  your  teaching,  I  can  touch  only 
a  few  points  which  my  time  will  not  suffer  me  to  expand. 

Let  your  teaching  be  pronounced  in  its  Calvinism.  The 
common  character  of  the  Reformed  Theology  in  its  more 
than  thirty  formularies  is  the  Calvinism  with  which  it  is 
pervaded.  And  the  specific  difference  of  Calvinism  is  the 
emphasis  with  which  it  signalizes  grace  in  all  the  parts  and 
at  all  the  stages  of  a  sinner's  salvation.  Am  I  mistaken 
when  I  affirm  that  the  doctrines  of  grace  no  longer  ring  from 
our  pulpits  as  they  once  did  in  the  days  of  our  fathers  ? 
Am  I  mistaken  when  I  affirm  that,  in  its  reaction  from  the 
sharpness  with  which  the  Five  Points  were  formerly  pressed, 
the  Church  has  swung  to  an  extreme  that  is  no  less  hurtful? 
If  it  is  true  that  "One  swallow  does  not  make  a  Spring,"  it 
is  also  true  that  "  Straws  show  how  the  wind  blows."  And 
is  there  not  some  significance  in  the  fact  that  the  committee 
charged  with  the  duty  of  erecting  in  our  national  Capital  a 
suitable  memorial  to  the  father  of  Republicanism,  whether 
in  the  sphere  of  the  Church  or  in  the  sphere  of  the  State, 
after  exercising  due  diligence,  and  that  too  for  a  consider- 
able period,  was  compelled  to  return  and  report  to  the  As- 
sembly that  the  temper  of  the  Church  would  not  warrant  a 
further  prosecution  of  its  task.  It  would  be  invidious  to 
attempt,  on  an  occasion  like  this,  to  fix  the  responsibility 
for  such  a  state  of  things.  But  this  I  may  say,  and  this.I 
will  say,  that  the  needed  reform  must  begin  in  our  Semi- 
naries. For  the  voices  of  the  people  are  only  the  multitu- 
dinous reverberations  of  the  voice  that  issues  from  the 
Pulpit ;  and  this,  in  turn,  is  only  the  echo  of  the  voice  that 
issues  from  the  Chair. 

Let  your  teaching  be  popular  in  its  form.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  remind  you  that  your  pupils  will  reproduce, 
and  that  too  in  exaggerated  forms,  all  that  may  be  vicious 
in  your  methods.  If  the  bones  that  you  serve  out  to  your 
classes  are  dry  bones,  rest  assured  that  the  bones  which  they 


Charge.  xv 

in  their  turn  will  serve  out  to  the  people  will  be  not  dry 
only,  but  very  dry.  I  do  not  forget  the  distinction  drawn 
by  Dr.  Chalmers  between  the  mode  in  which  Theology 
should  be  taught  in  the  Hall,  and  the  mode  in  which  it 
should  be  preached  in  the  Pulpit  ;  at  the  same  time  I  re- 
member that  those  lectures  delivered  to  his  pupils  in  the 
Hall  were  so  profusely  and  brilliantly  illustrated  that  close 
thinking  was  made  not  possible  only,  but  easy  and  delight- 
ful even  to  the  ordinary  hearer.  In  the  power  to  render 
popular  the  abstruse  truths  of  Theology,  your  late  predeces- 
sor was  without  a  rival.  It  was  never  my  fortune  to  hear 
him  lecture  from  his  Chair;  but  the  man  who  could  hold, 
as  with  a  spell,  the  large  and  promiscuous  audiences  that 
assembled  in  Philadelphia  to  hear  his  discussion  of  such 
themes  as  "Predestination"  and  "God's  Relation  to  the 
World,"  must  have  been  the  very  Prince  of  teachers  before 
his  classes  in  the  Seminary. 

Let  your  teaching  be  evangelical  in  its  spirit.  As  I  utter 
these  words,  there  rises  before  me  the  venerable  form  of  the 
sainted  Dr.  Skinner.  A  close  student  to  the  last,  the  atmos- 
phere which  he  always  brought  to  his  classes  was  more  that 
of  the  closet  than  of  the  study.  In  those  wonderful  prayers, 
in  which,  lifting  us  in  the  arms  of  his  faith,  he  bore  us  to 
the  very  foot  of  the  throne,  how  often  have  I  seen  him,  as 
in  an  ecstasy  of  devotion,  his  face  shone  like  that  of  an 
Angel.  When  the  Scriptures  would  represent  in  a  single 
sentence  the  character  of  God,  they  tell  us  that  God  is  love. 
Let  love  for  Christ  and  for  souls  so  burn  in  your  heart,  and 
beam  from  your  features,  and  speak  in  your  words,  and 
breathe  in  your  spirit,  that,  as  you  go  in  and  out  before 
your  classes,  you  shall  be,  like  the  Master  before  you,  your- 
self the  incarnation  of  love. 


INAUGURAL    ADDRESS. 

BY 

THE    REV.    BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD,    D.D. 


THE 

IDEA   OF   SYSTEMATIC   THEOLOGY 

CONSIDERED   AS   A   SCIENCE. 


PACE 


I. — The   Subject -Matter   of   Systematic   The- 
ology,        6-8 

II. — The  Presuppositions  of  Systematic  Theol- 
ogy,   8-12 

III. — The  Definition  of  Systematic  Theology,    .  12-15 

IV. — The  Sources  of  Systematic  Theology,         .  15-22 

V. — The  Place  of  Systematics  in  the  Theolog- 
ical Encyclopaedia, 22-28 

VI. — The  Place  of  Theology  among  the  Sciences,  28-31 

VII. — Systematic  Theology  a  Progressive  Science,  31-36 

VIII. — Systematic  Theology  a  Practical  Science,  36-40 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 


Fathers  and  Brethren  of  the  Board  of  Directors  : 

The  signature  which  I  have  just  affixed  to  the 
pledge  which  with  great  propriety,  as  I  beheve,  you 
require  of  those  whom  you  call  to  the  responsible 
position  of  teachers  in  this  Seminary,  will  have  assured 
you  already  of  the  matter  of  the  doctrinal  teaching 
which  is  still  to  be  expected  in  this  institution. 
Mourning  as  you  do  here  to-day,  with  the  renewed 
grief  which  is  brought  back  upon  us  all  by  the  bus- 
iness of  the  hour,  with  its  teeming  memories  of  those 
great  men  of  the  past  who  have  shed  lustre  on  the 
whole  church  from  the  chair  into  which  you  are  now 
inducting  a  new  incumbent,  may  you  not  take  some 
comfort  in  being  assured  that,  with  however  dimin- 
ished power,  the  same  theology  is  still  to  be  taught 
here  that  for  three-quarters  of  a  century  gave  to 
Princeton  Seminary  a  noble  name  in  the  world?  It 
was  not  my  lot  to  know  him  who  was  called  of  God 
to  plant  the  first  seeds  in  this  garden  of  the  Lord. 
But  it  was  my  inestimable  privilege  to  sit  at  the  feet 
of  him  who  tended  it  and  watered  it  until  its  fra- 
grance went  out  over  the  whole  earth.  And  I  rejoice 
to  testify  to  you  to-day  that  though  the  power  of 
Charles  Hodge  may  not  be  upon  me,  the  theology 
of  Charles  Hodge  is  within  me,  and  that  this  is  the 
theology  which,  according  to  my  ability,  I  have  it  in 
my  heart    to   teach  to  the  students   of  the   coming 


6  The  Idea  of  Systematic   Theology 

years.  Oh,  that  the  mantle  of  my  EHjah  might  fall 
upon  my  shoulders ;  at  least  the  message  that  was 
given  to  him  is  set  within  my  lips. 

In  casting  about  for  a  subject  germane  to  the  oc- 
casion on  which  I  might  address  you,  I  have  lighted 
upon  a  line  of  thought  which  leads  me  to  cast  what  I 
have  to  say  into  the  form  of  some  somewhat  desultory 
remarks  directed  toward  oudining  the  implications 
that  arise  from  our  regarding  systematic  theology  as 
a  science.     I  venture  to  state  my  subject,  then,  as 

THE    IDEA    OF    SYSTEMATIC    THEOLOGY    CONSIDERED    AS 

A    SCIENCE. 

I  am  not  sure  that  we  always  realize  how  much  we 
have  already  determined  about  theology,  when  we 
have  made  the  simple  assertion  concerning  it,  that  it 
is  a  science.  In  this  single  predicate  is  implicitly  in- 
cluded a  whole  series  of  affirmations  which,  taken 
together,  will  give  us  a  rather  clear  conception  not 
only  of  what  theology  is,  but  also  of  what  it  deals  with, 
Vi'hence  it  obtains  its  material,  and  for  what  purpose 
it  exists.  It  will  be  my  object  in  this  address  to  make 
this  plain  to  you. 

I.  First  of  all,  then,  let  us  observe  that  to  say  that 
theology  is  a  science  is  to  deny  that  it  is  a  historical 
discipline,  and  to  affirm  that  it  seeks  to  discover  not 
what  has  been  or  is  held  to  be  true,  but  what  is 
ideally  true  ;  in  other  words,  it  is  to  declare  that  it 
deals  with  absolute  truth  and  aims  at  orcranizinQf  into 
a  concatenated  system  all  the  truth  in  its  sphere. 
Geology  is  a  science,  and  on  that  very  account  there 
cannot  be  two  geologies ;   its  matter  is  all  the  well- 


Considered  as  a  Science.  7 

authenticated   facts   in   its  sphere,  and  its  aim  is  to 
digest  all  these  facts  into  one  all-comprehending-  sys- 
tem.   There  may  be  rival  psychologies,  which  fill  the 
world   with   vain  jangling ;    but   they   do   not  strive 
together  in  order  that  they  may  obtain  the  right  to 
exist  side  by  side  in  equal  validity,  but  in  strenuous 
effort  to  supplant  and  supersede  one  another :  there 
can  be  but  one  true  science  of  mind.    In  like  manner, 
just  because  theology  is  a  science  there  can  be  but 
one  theology.      This  all-embracing  system  will  brook 
no  rival  in  its  sphere,  and  there  can  be  two  theologies 
only  at  the  cost  of  one  or  both  of  them  being  im- 
perfect,  incomplete,  false.      It  is  because  theology  is 
often  looked  upon,  in  accordance  with  a  somewhat 
prevalent  point  of  view,  as  a  historical  rather  than  a 
scientific  discipline,  that  it  is  so  frequently  spoken  of 
and  defined  as  if  it  were   but  one   of  many  similar 
schemes  of  thought.     There  is  no  doubt  such  a  thing 
as  Christian  theology,  as  distinguished  from  Buddhist 
theology  or  Mohammedan  theology ;  and  men  may 
study  it  as  the  theological  implication  of  Christianity 
considered   as   one   of    the    world's    religions.      But 
when  studied  from  this  point  of  view,  it  forms  a  sec- 
tion of  a  historical  discipline  and  furnishes  its  share 
of  facts  for  a  history  of  religions  ;  on  the  data  sup- 
plied by  which  a  science  or  philosophy  of  religion 
may  in   turn   be   based.     We    may   also,   no   doubt, 
speak  of  the  Pelagian  and  Augustinian  theologies,  or 
of    the    Calvinistic    and    Arminian    theologies ;    but, 
again,  we  are  speaking  as  historians  and  from  a  his- 
torical  point  of  view.     The    Pelagian    and   Augus- 
tinian   theolofjies    are   not  two  co-ordinate   sciences 
of  theology;    they  are  rival   theologies.      If  one   is 


S  The  Idea  of  Systematic   Theology 

true,  just  so  far  the  other  is  false,  and  there  is  but 
one  theolog-y.  This  we  may  identify,  as  an  empirical 
fact,  with  either  or  neither;  but  it  is  at  all  events  one, 
inclusive  of  all  theological  truth  and  exclusive  of  all 
else  as  false  or  not  germane  to  the  subject. 

In  asserting  that  theology  is  a  science,  then,  we  as- 
sert that  in  its  subject-matter,  it  includes  all  the  facts 
belonging  to  that  sphere  of  truth  that  we  call  theolog- 
ical ;  and  w^e  deny  that  it  needs  or  will  admit  of  limi- 
tation by  a  discriminating  adjectival  definition.  We 
may  speak  of  it  as  Christian  theology  just  as  we  may 
speak  of  it  as  true  theology,  if  we  mean  thereby  more 
fully  to  describe  what,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  theology  is 
found  to  be ;  but  not,  if  we  mean  thereby  to  discrimi- 
nate it  from  some  other  assumed  theology  thus  erected 
to  a  co-ordinate  position  with  it.  We  may  describe 
our  method  of  procedure  in  attempting  to  ascertain 
and  organize  the  truths  that  come  before  us  for  build- 
ing into  the  system,  and  so  speak  of  logical  or  induc- 
tive, of  speculative  or  organic  theology ;  or  we  may 
separate  the  one  body  of  theology  into  its  members, 
and,  just  as  we  speak  of  surface  and  organic  geology 
or  of  physiological  and  direct  psychology,  so  speak 
of  the  theology  of  grace  and  of  sin,  or  of  natural  and 
revealed  theology.  But  all  these  are  but  designations 
of  methods  of  procedure  in  dealing  with  the  one 
whole,  or  of  the  various  sections  that  tooether  con- 
stitute  the  one  whole,  which  in  its  completeness  is  the 
science  of  theology,  and  which,  as  a  science,  is  inclu- 
sive of  all  the  truth  in  its  sphere,  however  ascertained, 
however  presented,  however  defended. 

II.  There  is  much  more  than  this  included,  how- 


.     Considered  as  a  Science.  9 

ever,  in  calling  theology  a  science.  For  the  very  ex- 
istence of  any  science,  three  things  are  presupposed: 
(i)  the  reality  of  its  subject-matter;  (2)  the  capacity 
of  the  human  mind  to  apprehend,  receive  into  itself, 
and  rationalize  this  subject-matter ;  and  (3)  some 
medium  of  communication  by  which  the  subject-mat- 
ter is  brought  before  the  mind  and  presented  to  it  for 
apprehension.  There  could  be  no  astronomy,  for  ex- 
ample, if  there  were  no  heavenly  bodies.  And  though 
the  heavenly  bodies  existed,  there  could  still  be  no 
science  of  them  were  there  no  mind  to  apprehend 
them.  Facts  do  not  make  a  science ;  even  facts  as 
apprehended  do  not  make  a  science;  they  must  be 
not  only  apprehended,  but  also  so  far  comprehended 
as  to  be  rationalized  and  thus  combined  into  a  corre- 
lated system.  The  mind  brings  somewhat  to  every 
science  which  is  not  included  in  the  facts  considered 
in  themselves  alone,  as  isolated  data,  or  even  as  data 
perceived  in  relation  to  one  another.  Though  they 
be  thus  known,  science  is  not  yet ;  and  is  not  born 
save  throuGj^h  the  efforts  of  the  mind  in  subsuming  the 
facts  under  its  own  intuitions  and  forms  of  thought. 
No  mind  is  satisfied  with  a  bare  cognition  of  facts : 
its  very  constitution  forces  it  on  to  a  restless  energy 
until  it  succeeds  in  working  these  facts  not  onl)-  into 
a  network  of  correlated  relations  among  themselves, 
but  also  into  a  rational  body  of  thought  correlated  to 
itself  and  its  modes  of  thinking.  The  condition  of 
science,  then,  is  that  the  facts  which  fall  within  its 
scope  shall  be  such  as  stand  in  relation  not  only  to 
our  faculties,  so  that  they  may  be  apprehended ;  but 
also  to  our  mental  constitution  so  that  they  may  be  so 
far  understood  as  to  be  rationalized  and  wrought  into 


lo  The  Idea  of  Systematic   Theology 

a  system  relative  to  our  thinking-.  Thus  a  science  of 
aesthetics  presupposes  an  aesthetic  faculty,  and  a 
science  of  morals  a  moral  nature,  as  truly  as  a  science 
of  logic  presupposes  a  logical  apprehension,  and  a 
science  of  mathematics  a  capacity  to  comprehend  the 
relations  of  numbers.  But  still  aixain,  thouQ^h  the 
facts  had  real  existence,  and  the  mind  were  furnished 
with  a  capacity  for  their  reception  and  for  a  sympa- 
thetic estimate  and  embracing  of  them  in  their  rela- 
tions, no  science  could  exist  were  there  no  media  by 
which  the  facts  should  be  brought  before  and  communi- 
cated to  the  mind.  The  transmitter  and  intermediat- 
ing wire  are  as  essential  for  telegraphing  as  the  mes- 
sage and  the  receiving  instrument.  Subjectively  speak- 
ing, sense  perception  is  the  essential  basis  of  all  science 
of  external  things;  self- consciousness,  of  internal 
things.  But  objective  media  are  also  necessary.  For 
example,  there  could  be  no  astronomy,  were  there  no 
trembling  ether  through  whose  delicate  telegraphy 
the  facts  of  light  and  heat  are  transmitted  to  us  from 
the  suns  and  systems  of  the  heavens.  Subjective  and 
objective  conditions  of  communication  must  unite,  be- 
fore the  facts  that  constitute  the  material  of  a  science 
can  be  placed  before  the  mind  that  gives  it  its  form. 
The  sense  of  sight  is  essential  to  astronomy  :  yet  the 
sense  of  sight  would  be  useless  for  forming  an  as- 
tronomy were  there  no  objective  ethereal  messengers 
to  bring  us  news  from  the  stars.  With  these  an  as- 
tronomy becomes  possible ;  but  how  meagre  an  as- 
tronomy compared  with  the  new  possibilities  which 
have  opened  out  with  the  discovery  of  a  new  medium 
of  communication  in  the  telescope,  followed  by  still 
newer  media  in  the  subtile  instruments  by  which  our 


Conside7'ed  as  a  Science,  1 1 

modern  investigators  not  only  weigh  the  spheres  in 
their  courses,  but  analyze  them  into  their  chemical 
elements,  map  out  the  heavens  in  a  chart,  and  sepa- 
rate the  suns  into  their  primary  constituents. 

Like  all  other  sciences,  therefore,  theology,  for  its 
very  existence  as  a  science,  presupposes  the  objective 
reality  of  the  subject-matter  with  which  it  deals ;  the 
subjective  capacity  of  the  human  mind  so  far  to  un- 
derstand this  subject-matter  as  to  be  able  to  subsume 
it  under  the  forms  of  its  thinking  and  to  rationalize  it 
into  not  only  a  comprehensive  but  also  a  comprehen- 
sible whole  ;  and  the  existence  of  trustworthy  media  of 
communication  by  which  the  subject-matter  is  brought 
to  the  mind  and  presented  before  it  for  perception 
and  understanding.  That  is  to  say:  (i).  The  af- 
firmation that  theology  is  a  science  presupposes  the 
affirmation  that  God  is,  and  that  He  has  relation  to 
His  creatures.  Were  there  no  God,  there  could  be 
no  theology ;  nor  could  there  be  a  theology  if,  though 
He  existed,  He  existed  out  of  relation  with  His 
creatures.  The  whole  body  of  philosophical  apolo- 
getics is,  therefore,  presupposed  in  and  underlies  the 
structure  of  scientific  theology.  (2).  The  affirmation 
that  theology  is  a  science  presupposes  the  affirmation 
that  man  has  a  religious  nature,  i.  e.,  a  nature  capable 
of  understanding  not  only  that  God  is,  hut  also,  to 
some  extent,  what  He  is ;  not  only  that  He  stands  in 
relation  with  His  creatures,  but  also  what  those  rela- 
tions are.  Had  man  no  religious  nature  he  might, 
indeed,  apprehend,  certain  facts  concerning  God,  but 
he  could  not  so  understand  Him  in  His  relations  to 
man  as  to  be  able  to  respond  to  those  facts  in  a  true 
and  sympathetic  embrace.     The  total  product  of  the 


1 2  The  Idea  of  Systematic   Theology 

great  science  of  religion,  which  investigates  the  nature 
and  workings  of  this  element  in  man's  mental  consti- 
tution, is  therefore  presupposed  in  and  underlies  the 
structure  of  scientific  theology.  (3).  The  affirmation 
that  theology  is  a  science  presupposes  the  affirmation 
that  there  are  media  of  communication  by  which  God 
and  Divine  things  are  brought  before  the  minds  of 
men,  that  they  may  perceive  them,  and  in  perceiving, 
understand  them.  In  other  words,  when  we  affirm 
'that  theology  is  a  science,  we  affirm  not  only  the  re- 
ality of  God's  existence  and  our  capacity  so  far  to  un- 
derstand Him,  but  we  affirm  that  He  has  made  Him- 
self known  to  us, — we  affirm  the  objective  reality  of 
a  revelation.  Were  there  no  revelation  of  God  to 
men,  our  capacity  to  understand  Him  would  lie  dor- 
mant and  unawakened  ;  and  though  He  really  existed 
it  would  be  to  us  as  if  He  were  not.  There  would  be 
a  God  to  be  known  and  a  mind  to  know  Him;  but 
theology  would  be  as  impossible  as  if  there  were  nei- 
ther the  one  nor  the  other.  Not  only,  then,  philosoph- 
ical, but  also,  if  there  be  a  written  revelation,  the  whole 
mass  of  historical  apologetics  by  which  the  reality  of 
a  written  revelation  is  vindicated,  is  presupposed  in  and 
underlies  the  structure  of  scientific  theology. 

III.  In  thus  developing  the  implications  of  calling 
theology  a  science,  we  have  already  gone  far  toward 
determining  our  exact  conception  of  what  theology  is. 
We  have  in  effect,  for  example,  settled  our  definition 
of  theology.  A  science  is  defined  from  its  subject- 
matter  ;  and  the  subject-matter  of  theology  is  God  in 
His  nature  and  in  His  relations  with  His  creatures. 
Theology  is  therefore  that  science  which   treats  of 


Considered  as  a  Science.  13 

God  and  of  the  relations  between  God  and  the  uni- 
verse. To  this  definition  most  theologians  have  act- 
ually come.  And  those  who  define  theology  as  "the 
science  of  God,"  mean  the  term  God  in  abroad  sense 
as  inclusive  also  of  His  relations ;  while  others  ex- 
hibit their  sense  of  the  need  of  this  inclusiveness  by 
calling  it  "  the  science  of  God  and  of  Divine  things  "; 
while  still  others  speak  of  it  more  loosely,  as  "  the 
science  of  the  supernatural."  These  definitions  fail 
rather  in  precision  of  language  than  in  correctness  of 
conception.  Others,  however,  go  astray  in  the  con- 
ception itself  Thus  theologians  of  the  school  of 
Schleiermacher  usually  derive  their  definition  from 
the  sources  rather  than  the  subject-matter  of  the 
science, — and  so  speak  of  theology  as  "the  science 
of  faith "  or  the  like ;  a  thoroughly  unscientific  pro- 
cedure, even  though  our  view  of  the  sources  be  com- 
plete and  unexceptionable,  which  is  certainly  not  the 
case  with  this  school.  Quite  as  confusing  is  it  to  de- 
fine theology,  as  is  very  currently  done  and  often  as 
an  outgrowth  of  this  same  subjective  tendency,  as 
"the  science  of  religion,"  or  even — pressing  the  his- 
torical conception  which  as  often  underlies  this  type 
of  definition,  to  its  greatest  extreme, — as  "the 
science  of  the  Christian  religion."  Theology  and  re- 
ligion are  parallel  products  of  the  same  body  of  facts 
in  diverse  spheres ;  the  one  in  the  sphere  of  thought 
and  the  other  in  the  sphere  of  life.  And  the  definition 
of  theology  as  "the  science  of  religion"  thus  con- 
founds the  product  of  the  facts  concerning  God  and 
His  relations  with  His  creatures  working  through  the 
hearts  and  lives  of  men,  with  those  facts  themselves ; 
and  consequently,  whenever  strictly  understood,  bases 


14  The  Idea  of  Systematic   Theology 

theolog-y  not  on  the  facts  of  the  divine  revelation,  but 
on  the  facts  of  the  religious  life.  This  leads  ultimate- 
ly to  a  confusion  of  the  two  distinct  disciplines  of  the- 
ology, the  subject-matter  of  which  is  objective,  and 
the  science  of  religion,  the  subject-matter  of  which  is 
subjective  ;  with  the  effect  of  lowering  the  data  of 
theology  to  the  level  of  the  aspirations  and  imagin- 
ings of  man's  own  heart.  Wherever  this  definition  is 
found,  either  a  subjective  conception  of  theology 
which  reduces  it  to  a  branch  of  psychology,  may  be 
suspected,  or  else  a  historical  conception  of  it,  a  con- 
ception of  "  Christian  theology"  as  one  of  the  many 
theologies  of  the  world  parallel  with,  even  if  unspeak- 
ably truer  than,  the  others  with  which  it  is  classed 
and  in  conjunction  with  which  it  furnishes  us  with  a 
full  account  of  religion.  When  so  conceived,  it  is 
natural  to  take  a  step  further  and  permit  the  method- 
ology of  the  science,  as  well  as  its  idea,  to  be  deter- 
mined by  its  distinguishing  element :  thus  theology, 
in  contradiction  to  its  very  name,  becomes  Christo- 
centric.  No  doubt,  "  Christian  theology,"  as  a  his- 
torical discipline,  is  Christo-centric;  it  is  by  its  doc- 
trine of  redemption  that  it  is  differentiated  from  all 
the  other  theologies  that  the  world  has  known.  But 
theology  as  a  science  is  and  must  be  Theo-centric. 
So  soon  as  we  firmly  grasp  it  from  the  scientific  point 
of  view,  we  see  that  there  can  be  but  one  science  of 
God  and  of  His  relations  to  His  universe,  and  we  no 
longer  seek  a  point  of  discrimination,  but  rather  a  cen- 
tre of  development ;  and  we  quickly  see  that  there 
can  be  but  one  centre  about  which  so  comprehensive 
a  subject-matter  can  be  organized, — the  conception 
of  God.     He  that  hath  seen  Christ,  has  beyond  doubt 


Considered  as  a  Science.  15 

seen  the  Father ;  but  it  is  one  thing  to  make  Him 
the  centre  of  theolog^y  so  far  as  He  is  one  with  God, 
and  another  thing  to  organize  all  theology  around 
Him  as  the  theanthropos  and  in  His  specifically 
theanthropic  work. 

IV.  Not  only,  however,  is  our  definition  of  theology 
thus  set  for  us :  we  have  also  determined  in  advance 
our  conception  of  its  sources.  We  have  already  made 
use  of  the  term  "  revelation,"  to  designate  the  medium 
by  which  the  facts  concerning  God  and  His  relations 
to  His  creatures  are  brought  before  men's  minds,  and 
so  made  the  subject-matter  of  a  possible  science.  The 
word  accurately  describes  the  condition  of  all  knowl- 
edge of  God.  If  there  be  a  God,  it  follows  by  strin-^ 
gent  necessity,  that  He  can  be  known  only  so  far  as 
He  reveals  Himself  And  it  is  but  the  converse  of 
this,  that  if  there  be  no  revelation,  there  can  be  no 
knowledge,  and,  of  course,  no  systematized  knowl- 
edge or  science  of  God.  Our  reaching  up  to  Him  in 
thought  and  inference  is  possible  only  because  He  con- 
descends to  make  Himself  intelligible  to  us,  to  speak 
to  us  through  word  or  work,  to  reveal  Himself  We 
hazard  nothing,  therefore,  in  saying  that,  as  the  con- 
dition of  all  theology  is  a  revealed  God,  so,  without 
limitation,  the  sole  source  of  theology  is  revelation. 

In  so  speaking,  however,  we  have  no  thought 
of  doubting  that  God's  revelation  of  Himself  is  "in 
divers  manners."  We  have  no  desire  to  deny  that 
He  has  never  left  man  without  witness  of  His  eternal 
power  and  Godhead,  or  that  He  has  multiplied  the 
manifestations  of  Himself  in  nature  and  providence 
and  grace,  so  that  every  generation  has  had  abiding 


1 6  The  Idea  of  Systeniaiie    Theology 

and  unmistakable  evidence  that  He  is,  that  He  is  the 
good  God,  and  that  He  is  a  God  who  marketh  iniquity. 
Under  the  broad  skirts  of  the  term  "  revelation,"  every 
method  of  manifesting  Himself  which  God  uses  in 
communicating  knowledge  of  His  being  and  attributes, 
may  find  shelter  for  itself — whether  it  be  through  those 
visible  things  of  nature  whereby  His  invisible  things 
are  clearly  seen,  or  through  the  constitution  of  the 
human  mind  with  its  causal  judgment  indellibly 
stamped  upon  it,  or  through  that  voice  of  God  that 
we  call  conscience,  which  proclaims  His  moral  law 
within  us,  or  through  His  providence  in  which  He 
makes  bare  His  arm  for  the  government  of  the  na- 
tions, or  through  the  exercises  of  His  grace,  our 
experience  under  the  tutelage  of  the  Holy  Ghost — or 
whether  it  be  through  the  open  visions  of  His  proph- 
ets, the  divinely-breathed  pages  of  His  written  Word, 
the  divine  life  of  the  Word  Himself.  How  God  re- 
veals Himself — in  what  divers  manners  He  makes 
Himself  known  to  His  creatures,  is  thus  the  subse- 
quent question  by  raising  which  we  distribute  the 
one  source  of  theology,  revelation,  into  the  various 
methods  of  revelation,  each  of  which  brings  us  true 
knowledge  of  God,  and  all  of  which  must  be  taken 
account  of  in  building-  our  knowledofe  into  one  all- 
comprehending  system.  It  is  the  accepted  method 
of  theology  to  infer  that  the  God  that  made  the  eye 
must  Himself  see ;  that  the  God  who  sovereignly 
distributes  His  favors  in  the  secular  world  may  be 
sovereign  too  in  grace  ;  that  the  heart  that  condemns 
itself  but  repeats  the  condemnation  of  the  greater 
God ;  that  the  songs  of  joy  in  which  the  Christian's 
happy  soul  voices  its  sense  of  God's  gratuitous  mercy, 


Considered  as  a  Science.  17 

are  valid  evidence  that  God  has  really  dealt  graciously 
with  it.  It  is  with  no  reserve  that  we  accept  all  these 
sources  of  knowledge  of  God — nature,  providence, 
Christian  experience — as  true  and  valid  sources,  the 
well-authenticated  data  yielded  by  which  are  to  be 
received  by  us  as  revelations  of  God,  and  as  such  to 
be  placed  alongside  of  the  revelations  in  the  written 
Word  and  wrought  with  them  into  one  system.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  theologians  have  always  so  dealt 
with  them ;  and  doubtless  they  always  will  so  deal 
with  them. 

But  to  perceive,  as  all  must  perceive,  that  every 
method  by  which  God  manifests  Himself  is,  so  far  as 
this  manifestation  can  be  clearly  interpreted,  a  source 
of  knowledge  of  Him,  and  must,  therefore,  be  taken 
account  of  in  framing  all  our  knowledge  of  Him  into 
one  organic  whole,  is  far  from  allowing  that  there  are 
no  differences  among  these  various  manifestations,  in 
the  amount  of  revelation  they  give,  the  clearness  of 
their  message;  the  case  and  certainty  with  which  they 
may  be  interpreted,  or  the  importance  of  the  special 
truths  which  they  are  fitted  to  convey.  Far  rather  is 
it  a  prio7-i  likely  that  if  there  are  "divers  manners" 
in  which  God  has  revealed  Himself,  He  has  not  re- 
vealed precisely  the  same  message  through  each ; 
that  these  "  divers  manners  "  correspond  also  to  divers 
messages  of  divers  degrees  of  importance,  delivered 
with  divers  deQfrees  of  clearness.  And  the  mere  fact 
that  He  has  included  in  these  "divers  manners"  a  copi- 
ous revelation  in  .a  written  Word,  delivered  with  an 
authenticating  accompaniment  of  signs  and  miracles, 
proved  by  recorded  prophecies  with  their  recorded 
fulfilments,  and  pressed,  with  the  greatest  solemnity, 


1 8  The  Idea  of  Systematic   Theology 

upon  the  attention  and  consciences  of  men  as  the  very 
Word  of  the  Living  God,  who  has  by  it  made  fooHsh- 
ness  all  the  wisdom  of  men  ;  nay,  proclaimed  as  con- 
taining within  itself  the  formulation  of  His  truth,  the 
proclamation  of  His  law,  the  discovery  of  His  plan  of 
salvation  : — this  mere  fact,  I  say,  would  itself  and  prior 
to  all  comparison,  raise  an  overwhelming  presump- 
tion that  all  the  others  of  "the  divers  manners"  of 
God's  revelation  were  insufficient  for  the  purposes  for 
which  revelation  is  given,  whether  on  account  of  de- 
fect in  the  amount  of  their  communication  or  insuffi- 
ciency of  attestation  or  uncertainty  of  interpretation 
or  fatal  onesidedness  in  the  character  of  the  revelation 
they  are  adapted  to  give.  We  need  not  be  surprised, 
therefore,  that  on  actual  examination,  all  these  imper- 
fections are  found  undeniably  to  attach  to  all  forms  of 
what  we  may,  for  the  sake  of  discrimination,  speak  of 
as  mere  manifestations  of  God ;  and  that  thus  the 
revelation  of  God  in  His  written  Word — in  which  are 
included  the  only  authentic  records  of  the  revelation 
of  Him  through  the  incarnate  Word — is  easily  shown 
not  only  to  be  incomparably  superior  to  all  other  mani- 
festations of  Him  in  the  fulness,  richness,  and  clear- 
ness of  its  communications,  but  also  to  contain  the 
sole  discovery  of  all  that  it  is  most  important  for  the 
soul  to  know  as  to  its  state  and  destiny,  and  of  all 
that  is  most  precious  in  our  whole  body  of  theological 
knowledge.  The  superior  lucidity  of  this  revelation 
makes  it  the  norm  of  interpretation  for  what  is  re- 
vealed so  much  more  darkly  through  the  other 
methods  of  manifestation.  The  glorious  character  of 
the  discoveries  made  in  it,  drives  all  other  manifesta- 
tions back  into  comparative  insignificance.    The  amaz- 


Considered  as  a  Science.  19 

ing  fulness  of  its  disclosures  renders  the  litde  that  they 
can  tell  us  of  small  comparative  value.  And  its  abso- 
lute completeness  for  the  needs  of  man,  taking  up  and 
reiteratingly  repeating  in  the  clearest  of  language  all 
that  can  be,  only  after  much  difficulty  and  with  much 
uncertainty,  wrung  from  their  enigmatic  indications, 
and  then  adding  to  this  a  vast  body  of  still  more  im- 
portant truth  undiscoverable  through  them,  all  but 
supersedes  their  necessity.  With  the  fullest  recog- 
nition of  the  validity  of  all  the  knowledge  of  God  and 
His  ways  \\\\\\  men,  which  can  be  obtained  through 
the  manifestations  of  His  power  and  divinity  in  nature 
and  history  and  grace  ;  and  the  frankest  allowance 
that  the  written  Word  is  given,  not  to  destroy  the 
manifestations  of  God,  but  to  fulfill  them;  the  theo- 
logian must  yet  refuse  to  give  these  sources  of  knowl- 
edge a  place  alongside  of  the  written  Word,  in  any 
other  sense  than  that  he  gladly  admits  that  they,  alike 
with  it,  but  in  unspeakably  lower  measure,  do  tell  us 
somewhat  of  God,  And  nothing  can  be  a  clearer  in- 
dication of  a  decadent  theology  or  of  a  decaying  faith, 
than  a  tendency  to  neglect  the  Word  in  favor  of  some 
one  or  of  all  of  the  lesser  sources  of  theological  truth, 
as  fountains  from  which  to  draw  our  knowledofe  of 
divine  things.  This  were  to  prefer  the  flickering  rays 
of  a  taper  to  the  blazing  light  of  the  sun  ;  to  elect  to 
draw  our  w^ater  from  a  muddy  run  rather  than  to  dip 
it  from  the  broad  bosom  of  the  pure  fountain  itself. 

Nevertheless,  men  have  often  sought  to  still  the 
cravings  of  their  souls  with  a  purely  natural  theology  ; 
and  there  are  men  to-day  who  prefer  to  derive  their 
knowledge  of  what  God  is  and  what  He  will  do  for 
man  from  an  analysis  of  the  implications  of  their  own 


20  The  Idea  of  Systematic   Theology 

religious  feelings  :  not  staying  to  consider  that  nature, 
"  red  in  tooth  and  claw  with  ravin,"  can  but  direct 
our  eyes  to  the  God  of  law,  whose  deadly  letter 
killeth  ;  or  that  our  feelings  must  needs  point  us  to 
the  God  of  our  imperfect  apprehensions  or  of  our 
unsanctified  desires, — not  to  the  God  that  is,  so  much 
as  to  the  God  that  we  would  fain  should  be.  The 
natural  result  of  resting  on  the  revelations  of  nature 
is  despair ;  while  the  inevitable  end  of  making  our 
appeal  to  even  the  Christian  heart  is  to  make  for 
ourselves  refuges  of  lies  in  which  there  is  neither 
truth  nor  safety.  We  may,  indeed,  admit  that  it  is 
valid  reasoning  to  infer  from  the  nature  of  the  Chris- 
tian life  what  are  the  modes  of  God's  activities  toward 
His  children  :  to  sec,  for  instance,  in  conviction  of 
sin  and  the  sudden  peace  of  the  new-born  soul,  God's 
hand  in  slaying  that  He  may  make  alive.  His  almighty 
power  in  raising  the  spiritually  dead.  Bufhow  easy 
to  overstep  the  limits  of  valid  inference  ;  and,  for- 
getting that  it  is  the  body  of  Christian  truth  known 
and  consciously  assimilated  that  determines  the  type 
of  Christian  experience,  confuse  in  our  inferences 
what  is  from  man  with  what  is  from  God,  and  con- 
dition and  limit  our  theology  by  the  undeveloped 
Christian  thouQfht  of  the  man  or  his  times.  The  in- 
terpretation  of  the  data  included  in  what  we  have 
learned  to  call  "  the  Christian  consciousness,"  whether 
ot  the  individual  or  of  the  church  at  large,  is  a  pro- 
cess so  delicate,  so  liable  to  error,  so  inevitably 
swayed  to  this  side  or  that  by  the  currents  that  flow  up 
and  down  in  the  soul,  that  probably  few  satisfactory 
inferences  could  be  drawn  from  it,  had  we  not  the 
norm  of  Christian  experience  and  its  dogmatic  impli- 


Considered  as  a  Scie?tce.  21 

cations  recorded  for  us  in  the  perspicuous  pages  of 
the  written  word.  But  even  were  we  to  suppose  that 
the  interpretation  was  easy  and  secure,  and  that  we 
had  before  us  in  an  infalhble  formulation,  all  the  im- 
plications of  the  religious  experience  of  all  the  men 
who  have  ever  known  Christ,  we  have  no  reason 
to  believe  that  the  whole  body  of  facts  thus  obtained, 
would  suffice  to  give  us  a  complete  theology.  After 
all,  we  know  in  part  and  we  fed  in  part ;  it  is  only 
when  that  which  is  perfect  shall  appear  that  we  shall 
know  or  experience  all  that  Christ  has  in  store  for 
us.  With  the  fullest  acceptance,  therefore,  of  the 
data  of  the  theology  of  this  feelings,  no  less  than 
of  natural  theology,  when  their  results  are  validly 
obtained  and  sufficiently  authenticated  as  trustworthy, 
as  divinely  revealed  facts  which  must  be  wrought 
into  our  system,  it  remains  nevertheless  true  that 
we  should  be  confined  to  a  meagre  and  doubtful  the- 
ology were  these  data  not  confirmed,  reinforced,  and 
supplemented  by  the  surer  and  fuller  revelations  of 
Scripture ;  and  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  are  the 
source  of  theology  in  not  only  a  degree,  but  also  a 
sense  in  which  nothing  else  is. 

There  might  be  a  theology  without  the  Scriptures, 
— a  theology  of  nature,  gathered  by  painful,  and  slow, 
and  doubtful  processes  from  what  man  saw  around  him 
in  external  nature  and  the  course  of  history,  and  what 
he  saw  within  him  of  nature  and  of  grace.  In  like 
manner  there  may  be  and  has  been  an  astronomy  of 
nature,  gathered  by  man  in  his  natural  state  without 
help  from  aught  but  his  naked  eyes,  as  he  watched 
in  the  fields  by  night.  Hut  what  is  this  astronomy 
of  nature  to  the  astronomy  that  has  become  possible 


2  2  The  Idea  of  Systematic   Theology 

through  the  wonderful  appliances  of  our  observa- 
tories ?  The  Word  of  God  is  to  theology  as,  but 
vastly  more  than,  these  instruments  are  to  astronomy. 
•  It  is  the  instrument  which  so  far  increases  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  science  as  to  revolutionize  it  and  to 
place  it  upon  a  height  from  which  it  can  never  more 
descend.  What  would  be  thoueht  of  the  deluded 
man,  who,  discarding  the  new  methods  of  research, 
should  insist  on  acquiring  all  the  astronomy  which  he 
would  admit,  from  the  unaided  observation  of  his 
own  myopic  and  astigmatic  eyes?  INIuch  more  de- 
luded is  he  who,  neglecting  the  instrument  of  God's 
word  written,  would  confine  his  admissions  of  theo- 
logical truth  to  what  he  could  discover  from  the 
broken  lights  that  play  upon  external  nature,  and  the 
faint  gleams  of  a  dying  or  even  a  slowly  reviving 
light,  which  arise  in  his  own  sinful  soul.  Ah,  no ! 
the  telescope  first  made  a  real  science  of  astronomy 
possible :  and  the  Scriptures  form  the  only  sufficing 
and  thoroughly  infallible  source  of  theology. 

V.  Under  such  a  conception  of  its  nature  and 
sources,  we  are  driven  to  consider  the  place  of  system- 
atic theology  among  the  other  theological  disciplines  as 
well  as  among  the  other  sciences  in  general.  Without 
encroaching  upon  the  details  of  Theological  Encyclo- 
paedia, we  may  adopt  here  the  usual  fourfold  distribu- 
tion of  the  theological  disciplines  into  the  Exegetical, 
the  Historical,  the  Systematic,  and  the  Practical,  with 
only  the  correction  of  prefixing  to  them  a  fifth  depart- 
ment of  Apologetical  Theology.  The  place  of  System- 
atic Theology  in  this  distribution  is  determined  by  its 
relation  to  the  preceding  disciplines,  of  which  it  is 


Considered  as  a  Science.  23 

the  crown  and  head.  Apologetical  theology  prepares 
the  wa}^  for  all  theology  by  establishing  its  necessary 
presuppositions  without  which  no  theology  is  possi- 
ble— the  existence  and  essential  nature  of  God,  the  • 
religious  nature  of  man  which  enables  him  to  receive 
a  revelation  from  God,  the  possibility  of  a  revelation 
and  its  actual  realization  in  the  Scriptures.  It  thus 
places  the  Scriptures  in  our  hands  for  investigation 
and  study.  Exegetical  theology  receives  these  in- 
spired writings  from  the  hands  of  apologetics,  and  in- 
vestigates their  meaning ;  presenting  us  with  a  body 
of  detailed  and  substantiated  results,  culminatino-  in 
a  series  of  organized  systems  of  biblical  history,  bibli- 
cal ethics,  biblical  theology,  and  the  like,  which  pro- 
vide material  for  further  use  in  the  more  advanced 
disciplines.  Historical  theology  investigates  the  pro- 
gressive realization  of  Christianity  in  the  lives,  hearts, 
\vorship,  and  thought  of  men,  issuing  not  only  in  a 
full  account  of  the  history  of  Christianity,  but  also  in 
a  body  of  facts  which  come  into  use  in  the  more  ad- 
vanced disciplines,  especially  in  the  way  of  the  sifted 
results  of  the  reasoned  thinking  and  deep  experience 
of  Christian  truth  during  the  whole  past,  as  well  as  of 
the  manifold  experiments  that  have  been  made  during 
the  ages  in  Christian  organization,  worship,  living, 
and  creed-building.  Systematic  theology  does  not 
fail  to  strike  its  roots  deeply  into  this  matter  furnished 
by  historical  theology ;  it  knows  how  to  profit  by  the 
experience  of  all  past  generations  in  their  efforts  to 
understand  and  define,  to  systematize  and  defend  re- 
vealed truth  ;  and  it  thinks  of  nothing  so  little  as 
lightly  to  discard  the  conquests  of  so  many  hard- 
fought  fields.     It  therefore  gladly  utilizes  all  the  ma- 


24  TJic  Idea  of  Systematic   Theology 

terial  that  historical  theology  brings  it,  accounting  it, 
indeed,  the  very  precipitate  of  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness of  the  past ;  but  it  does  not  use  it  crudely,  or 
at  first  hand  for  itself,  but  accepts  it  as  investigated, 
explained,  and  made  available  by  the  sister  discipline 
of  historical  theology  which  alone  can  understand  it 
or  draw  from  it  its  true  lessons.  It  certainly  does  not 
find  in  it  its  chief  or  primary  source,  and  its  relation 
to  historical  theology  is,  in  consequence,  far  less  close 
than  that  in  which  it  stands  to  exegetical  theology 
which  is  its  true  and  especial  handmaid.  The  inde- 
pendence of  exegetical  theology  is  seen  in  the  fact  that 
it  does  its  work  wholly  without  thought  or  anxiety  as 
to  the  use  that  is  to  be  made  of  its  results  ;  and  that 
it  furnishes  a  vastly  larger  body  of  data  than  can  be 
utilized  by  any  one  discipline.  It  provides  a  body  of 
historical,  ethical,  liturgic,  ecclesiastical  facts,  as  well 
as  a  body  of  theological  facts.  But  so  far  as  its  theo- 
logical facts  are  concerned,  it  provides  them  chiefly 
that  they  may  be  used  by  systematic  theology  as  ma- 
terial out  of  which  to  build  its  system.  This  is  not  to 
forget  the  claims  of  biblical  theology.  It  is  rather  to 
emphasize  its  value,  and  to  afford  occasion  for  ex- 
plaining its  true  place  in  the  encyclopaedia,  and  its  true 
relations  on  the  one  side  to  exegetical  theology,  and 
on  the  other  to  systematics, — a  matter  which  appears 
to  be  even  yet  imperfectly  understood  in  some  quar- 
ters. Biblical  theology  is  not  a  section  of  historical 
theology,  although  it  must  be  studied  in  a  historical 
spirit,  and  has  a  historical  face ;  it  is  rather  the  ripest 
fruit  of  exegetics,  and  exegetics  has  not  performed  its 
full  task  until  its  scattered  results  in  the  way  of  theo- 
logical data  are  gathered  up  into  a  full  and  articulated 


Considered  as  a  Science.  25 

system  of  biblical  theology.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
the  time  will  come  when  no  commentary  will  be  con- 
sidered complete  until  the  capstone  is  placed  upon  its 
fabric  by  closing  chapters  gathering  up  into  systema- 
tized exhibits,  the  unsystematized  results  of  the  con- 
tinuous exegesis  of  the  text,  in  the  spheres  of  history, 
ethics,  theology,  and  the  like.  The  task  of  biblical 
theology,  in  a  word,  is  the  task  of  co-ordinating  the 
scattered  results  of  continuous  execfesis  into  a  con- 
catenated  whole,  whether  with  reference  to  a  single 
book  of  Scripture  or  to  a  body  of  related  books  or  to 
the  whole  Scriptural  fabric.  Its  chief  object  is  not  to 
find  differences  of  conception  between  the  various 
writers,  though  some  recent  students  of  the  subject 
seem  to  think  this  is  so  much  their  duty,  that  when 
they  cannot  find  differences,  they  make  them.  It  is 
to  reproduce  the  theological  thought  of  each  writer 
or  group  of  writers  in  the  form  in  which  it  lay  in  their 
own  minds,  so  that  we  may  be  enabled  to  look  at  all 
their  theological  statements  at  their  angle,  and  to 
understand  all  their  deliverances  as  modified  and  con- 
ditioned by  their  own  point  of  view.  Its  exegetical 
value  lies  just  in  this  circumstance,  that  it  is  only  when 
we  have  thus  concatenated  an  author's  theological 
statements  into  a  whole,  that  we  can  be  sure  that  we 
understand  them  as  he  understood  them  in  detail.  A 
light  is  inevitably  thrown  back  from  biblical  theology 
upon  the  separate  theological  deliverances  as  they 
occur  in  the  text,  such  as  subtilely  colors  ihem,  and 
often,  for  the  first  time,  gives  them  to  us  in  their  true 
setting,  and  thus  enables  us  to  guard  against  pervert- 
ing them  when  we  adapt  them  to  our  use.  This  is  a 
noble  function,  and  could  students  of  biblical  theology 


26  The  Idea  of  Systematic   Theology 

only  firmly  grasp  it,  once  for  all,  as  their  task,  it  would 
prevent  the  brino-ing  this  important  science  into  con- 
tempt through  a  tendency  to  exaggerate  differences  in 
•  form  of  statement  into  divergences  of  view,  and  so  to 
force  the  deliverances  of  each  book  into  a  stranofe 
and  unnatural  combination,  in  their  effort  to  vindicate 
a  function  for  their  discipline. 

The  relation  of  biblical  theoloo^y  to  systematic  the- 
ology is  based  on  a  true  view  of  its  function.  Sys- 
tematic theology  is  not  founded  on  the  direct  and 
primary  results  of  the  exegetical  process  ;  it  is  found- 
ed on  the  final  and  complete  results  of  exegesis  as  ex- 
hibited in  biblical  theology.  Not  exegesis  itself, 
then,  but  biblical  theology,  provides  the  material  for 
systematics.  It  is  not,  then,  a  rival  of  systematics ; 
it  is  not  even  a  parallel  product  of  the  same  body  of 
facts,  provided  by  exegesis  ;  it  is  the  basis  and  source 
of  systematics.  Systematic  theology  is  not  a  con- 
catenation of  the  scattered  theologfical  data  furnished 
by  the  exegetic  process ;  it  is  the  combination  of  the 
already  concatenated  data  given  to  it  by  biblical  the- 
ology. It  uses  the  individual  data  furnished  by  exe- 
gesis, in  a  word,  not  crudely,  not  independently  for 
itself,  but  only  after  these  data  have  been  worked  up 
into  biblical  theology  and  have  received  from  it  their 
final  coloring  and  subtlest  shades  of  meaning — in 
other  words,  only  in  their  true  sense,  and  only  after 
exegetics  has  said  its  last  word  upon  them.  Just  as 
we  shall  attain  our  finest  and  truest  conception  of  the 
person  and  work  of  Christ,  not  by  crudely  trying  to 
combine  the  scattered  details  of  His  life  and  teachinor 
as  given  in  our  four  gospels  into  one  patchwork  life 
and  account  of  His  teaching ;  but  far  more  rationally 


Considered  as  a  Science.  27 

and  far  more  successfully  by  first  catching  Matthew's 
full  conception  of  Jesus,  and  then  Mark's,  and  then 
Luke's,  and  then  John's,  and  combining  these  four 
conceptions  into  one  rounded  whole  : — so  we  gain  our 
truest  systematics  not  by  at  once  working  together 
the  separate  dogmatic  statements  in  the  Scriptures, 
but  by  combining  them  in  their  due  order  and  propor- 
tion as  they  stand  in  the  various  theologies  of  the 
Scriptures.  Thus  we  are  enabled  to  view  the  future 
whole  not  only  in  its  parts,  but  in  the  several  combi- 
nations of  the  parts,  and,  looking  at  it  from  every 
side,  to  obtain  a  true  conception  of  its  solidity  and 
strength,  and  to  avoid  all  exaggeration  or  falsification 
of  the  details  in  giving  them  place  in  the  completed 
structure.  And  thus  we  do  not  make  our  theology, 
according  to  our  own  pattern,  as  a  mosaic,  out  of  the 
fragments  of  the  biblical  teaching;  but  rather  look 
out  from  ourselves  upon  it  as  a  great  prospect,  framed 
out  of  the  mountains  and  plains  of  the  theologies  of 
the  Scriptures,  and  strive  to  attain  a  point  of  view  from 
which  we  can  bring  the  whole  landscape  into  our  field 
of  sight.  From  this  point  of  view,  we  find  no  difficulty 
in  understanding  the  relation  in  which  the  several  disci- 
plines stand  to  one  another,  with  respect  to  their  con- 
tents. The  material  that  systematics  draws  from  other 
than  biblical  sources  may  be  here  left  out  of  account, 
seeing  that  we  are  now  investigating  its  relations,  con- 
sidered as  a  biblical  discipline,  to  its  fellow  biblical 
departments.  The  actual  contents  of  the  theological 
results  of  the  exegetic  process,  of  biblical  theology, 
and  of  systematics,  with  this  limitation,  may  be  said 
to  be  the  same.  The  immediate  work  of  exegesis  may 
be  compared  to  the  work  of  a  recruiting  officer :   it 


28  The  Idea  of  Systeitiatic   Theology 

draws  out  from  the  mass  of  mankind  the  men  who  are 
to  constitute  the  army.  BibHcal  theology  organizes 
these  men  into  companies  and  regiments  and  corps, 
arranged  in  marching  order  and  accoutred  for  service. 
Systematic  theology  combines  these  companies  and 
regiments  and  corps  into  an  army  drawn  up  in  battle 
array  against  the  enemy  of  the  day.  It,  too,  is  com- 
posed of  men — the  same  men  which  were  recruited  by 
exegetics  ;  but  it  is  composed  of  these  men,  not  as 
individuals  merely,  but  in  their  due  relations  to  the 
other  men  of  their  companies  and  regiments  and 
corps.  The  simile  not  only  illustrates  the  mutual  re- 
lations of  the  disciplines,  but  also  suggests  the  histor- 
ical element  that  attaches  to  biblical  theology,  and  the 
polemic  or  practical  element  which  is  inseparable  from 
systematic  theology  as  distinguished  from  a  merely 
biblical  dogmatic.  It  is  just  this  polemico-practical  ele- 
ment, determining  the  spirit  and  therefore  the  methods 
of  systematic  theology,  which,  along  with  its  greater 
inclusiveness,  discriminates  it  from  all  forms  of  biblical 
theology  the  spirit  of  which  is  purely  historical. 

VI.  The  place  that  theology  claims  for  itself,  as 
the  scientific  presentation  of  all  the  facts  that  are 
known  concerning  God  and  His  relations,  within  the 
circle  of  the  sciences,  is  an  equally  high  one.  Whether 
we  consider  the  topics  which  it  treats,  in  their  dignity, 
their  excellence,  their  grandeur ;  or  the  certainty 
with  which  its  data  can  be  determined ;  or  the  com- 
pleteness with  which  its  principles  have  been  ascer- 
tained and  its  details  classified  ;  or  the  usefulness  and 
importance  of  its  discoveries :  it  is  as  far  out  of  all 
comparison  above  all   other  sciences  as  the  eternal 


Considered  as  a  Science.  29 

health  and  destiny  of  the  soul  are  of  more  value  than 
this  fleeting  life  in  this  world.  It  is  not  so  above 
them,  however,  as  not  to  be  also  within  them.  There 
is  no  one  of  them  all  which  is  not  in  some  measure 
touched  and  affected  by  it,  or,  we  may  even  say, 
which  is  not  in  some  measure  included  in  it.  As  all 
nature,  whether  mental  or  material,  may  be  conceived 
of  as  only  the  mode  in  which  God  manifests  Himself, 
every  science  which  investigates  nature  and  ascer- 
tains its  laws,  is  occupied  with  the  discovery  of  the 
modes  of  the  Divine  action,  and  as  such  might  be 
considered  a  branch  of  theology.  Its  closest  rela- 
tions are,  no  doubt,  with  the  highest  of  the  other 
sciences,  ethics.  Any  discussion  of  our  duty  to  God 
must  rest  on  a  knowledge  of  our  relation  to  Him  ; 
and  much  of  our  duty  to  man  Is  undlscoverable,  save 
through  knowledge  of  our  common  relation  to  the 
one  God  and  Father  of  all,  and  one  Lord  the  Re- 
deemer of  all,  and  one  Spirit  the  sanctifier  of  all, — all 
of  which  it  is  the  function  of  theology  to  supply.  This 
is  not  Inconsistent  with  the  existence  of  a  natural 
ethics ;  but  an  ethics  independent  of  theological  con- 
ceptions would  be  a  meagre  thing  indeed,  while  the 
theology  of  the  Scriptural  revelation  for  the  first  time 
affords  a  basis  for  ethical  investigation  at  once  broad 
enough  and  sure  enough  to  raise  that  science  to  its 
true  dignity.  Neither  must  we  on  the  ground  of  this 
intimacy  of  relation  confound  the  two  sciences  of 
theology  and  ethics.  Something  like  it  in  kind  and 
approaching  it  in  degree  exists  between  theology  and 
every  other  science,  no  one  of  which  is  so  Independ- 
ent of  it  as  not  to  touch  and  be  touched  by  it.  Much 
of  theology  is  presupposed  in   all  metaphysics  and 


30  The  Idea  of  Systematic   Theology 

physics  alike.  It  alone  can  determine  the  origin  of 
either  matter  or  mind,  or  of  the  mystic  powers  that 
have  been  granted  to  them.  It  alone  can  explain  the 
nature  of  second  causes  and  set  the  boundaries  to 
their  efficiency.  It  alone  is  competent  to  declare  the 
meaning  of  the  ineradicable  persuasion  of  the  human 
mind  that  its  reason  is  right  reason,  its  processes 
trustworthy,  its  intuitions  true.  All  science  without 
God  is  mutilated  science,  and  no  account  of  a  single 
branch  of  knowledge  can  ever  be  complete  until  it  is 
pushed  back  to  find  its  completion  and  ground  in 
Him.  It  is  as  true  of  sciences  as  it  is  of  creatures,  that 
in  Him  they  all  live  and  move  and  have  their  being. 
The  science  of  Him  and  His  relations  is  thus  the 
necessary  ground  of  all  science.  All  speculation 
takes  us  back  to  Him;  all  inquiry  presupposes  Him; 
and  every  phase  of  science  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously rests  at  every  step  on  the  science  that  makes 
Him  known.  Theology,  thus,  both  lies  at  the  root  of 
all  sciences,  and  brings  to  each  its  capstone  and  crown. 
Each  could,  indeed,  exist  without  it,  in  a  sense  and 
in  some  degree ;  but  through  it  alone  can  any  one 
of  them  reach  its  true  dignity.  Herein  we  see 
not  only  the  proof  of  its  greatness,  but  also  the  as- 
surance of  its  permanence.  "  What  so  permeates  all 
sections  and  subjects  of  human  thought,  has  a  deep 
root  in  human  nature  and  an  immense  hold  on  it. 
What  so  possesses  man's  mind  that  he  cannot  think 
at  all  without  thinking  of  it,  is  so  bound  up  with  the 
very  being  of  intelligence  that  ere  it  can  perish,  in- 
tellect must  cease  to  be."  * 


Principal  Fairbairn. 


Considered  as  a  Science.  31 

VII.  The  interpretation  of  a  written  document,  in- 
tended to  convey  a  plain  message,  is  infinitely  easier 
than  the  interpretation  of  the  teaching  embodied  in 
facts  themselves.  It  is  therefore  that  systematic 
treatises  on  the  several  sciences  are  written.  The- 
ology has,  therefore,  an  immense  advantage  over  all 
other  sciences,  inasmuch  as  it  is  more  an  inductive 
study  of  facts  conveyed  in  a  written  revelation,  than  an 
inductive  study  of  facts  as  conveyed  in  life.  It  was, 
consequently,  the  first-born  of  the  sciences.  It  was 
the  first  to  reach  relative  completeness.  And  it  is  to- 
day in  a  state  far  nearer  perfection  than  any  other 
science.  This  is  not,  however,  to  deny  that  it  is  a 
progressive  science.  In  exactly  the  same  sense 
(though  not  in  equal  degree)  in  which  any  other 
science  is  progressive,  this  is  progressive.  It  is  not 
meant  that  new  revelations  are  to  be  expected,  or 
new  discoveries  made,  of  truth  which  has  not  been 
before  within  the  reach  of  man.  There  is  a  vast  dif- 
ference between  the  progress  of  a  science  and  increase 
in  its  material.  All  the  facts  of  psychology,  for  in- 
stance, have  been  in  existence  so  long  as  mind  itself 
has  existed ;  and  the  progress  of  this  science  has 
been  dependent  on  the  progressive  discovery,  under- 
standing, and  systematization  of  these  facts.  All  the 
facts  of  theology  have,  in  like  manner,  been  within 
the  reach  of  man  for  nearly  two  millenniums  ;  and 
the  progress  of  theology  is  dependent  on  men's  prog- 
ress in  gathering,  defining,  mentally  assimilating, 
and  organizing  these  facts  into  a  correlated  system. 
So  long  as  revelation  was  not  completed,  the  pro- 
gressive character  of  theology  was  secured  by  the 
progress  in  revelation  itself.     And  since  the  close  of 


32  The  Idea  of  Systematic    Theology 

the  canon  of  Scripture,  the  intellectual  realization  and 
definition  of  the  doctrines  revealed  in  it,  in  relation 
to  one  another,  have  been,  as  a  mere  matter  of  fact,  a 
slow  but  ever  advancing  process.  The  affirmation 
that  theology  has  been  a  progressive  science  is  no 
more,  then,  than  to  assert  that  it  is  a  science  that  has 
had  a  history, — and  a  history  which  can  be  and  should 
be  genetically  traced  and  presented.  First,  the  ob- 
jective side  of  Christian  truth  was  developed  :  pressed 
on  the  one  side  by  the  crass  monotheism  of  the  Jews 
and  on  the  other  by  the  coarse  polytheism  of  the  hea- 
then, and  urged  on  by  its  own  internal  need  of  under- 
standing the  sources  of  its  life,  Christian  theology 
first  searched  the  Scriptures  that  it  might  understand 
the  nature  and  modes  of  existence  of  its  God  and  the 
person  of  its  divine  redeemer.  Then,  more  and  niore 
conscious  of  itself,  it  more  and  more  fully  wrought  out 
from  those  same  Scriptures  a  guarded  expression  of 
the  subjective  side  of  its  faith  ;  until  through  throes 
and  conflicts  it  has  built  up  the  system  which  we  all 
inherit.  Thus  the  body  of  Christian  truth  has  come 
down  to  us  in  the  form  of  an  organic  growth ;  and 
we  can  conceive  of  the  completed  structure  as  the 
ripened  fruit  of  the  ages,  as  truly  as  we  can  think  of 
it  as  the  perfected  result  of  the  exegetical  discipline. 
As  it  has  come  into  our  possession  by  this  historic 
process,  there  is  no  reason  that  we  can  assign  why 
it  should  not  continue  to  make  for  itself  a  history. 
We  do  not  expect  the  history  of  theology  to  close  in 
our  own  day.  However  nearly  completed  our  real- 
ization of  the  body  of  truth  may  seem  to  us  to  be ; 
however  certain  it  is  that  the  great  outlines  are  al- 
ready securely  laid  and  most  of  the  details  soundly 


Considered  as  a  Science.  33 

discovered  and  arranged ;  no  one  will  assert  that 
every  detail  is  as  yet  perfected,  and  we  are  all  living 
in  the  confidence  so  admirably  expressed  by  old  John 
Robinson,  "  that  God  hath  more  truth  yet  to  break 
forth  from  His  holy  word."  Just  because  God  gives 
us  the  truth  in  single  threads  which  we  must  weave 
into  the  reticulated  texture,  all  the  threads  are  always 
within  our  reach,  but  the  finished  texture  is  ever  and 
will  ever  continue  to  be  before  us  until  we  dare  affirm 
that  there  is  no  truth  in  the  word  which  we  have  not 
perfectly  apprehended,  and  no  relation  of  these  truths 
as  revealed  which  we  have  not  perfectly  understood, 
and  no  possibility  in  clearness  of  presentation  which 
we  have  not  attained. 

The  conditions  of  progress  in  theology  are  clearly 
discernible  from  its  nature  as  a  science.  The  pro- 
gressive men  in  any  science  are  the  men  who  stand 
firmly  on  the  basis  of  the  already  ascertained  truth. 
The  condition  of  progress  in  building  the  structures 
of  those  great  cathedrals  whose  splendid  piles  glorify 
the  history  of  art  in  the  middle  ages,  was  that  each 
succeeding  generation  should  build  upon  the  founda- 
tions laid  by  its  predecessor.  If  each  architect  had 
begun  by  destroying  what  had  been  accomplished  by 
his  forerunners,  no  cathedral  would  ever  have  been 
raised.  The  railroad  is  pushed  across  the  continent 
by  the  simple  process  of  laying  each  rail  at  the  end 
of  the  line  already  laid.  The  prerequisite  of  all  prog- 
ress is  a  clear  discrimination  which  as  frankly  ac- 
cepts the  limitations  set  by  the  truth  already  dis- 
covered, as  it  rejects  the  false  and  bad.  Construc- 
tion is  not  destruction ;  neither  is  it  the  outcome  of 
destruction.     There  are  abuses  no  doubt  to  be  re- 


34  ^/^^  /<^r^  of  Systematic   Theology 

formed ;  errors  to  correct ;   falsehoods  to  cut  away. 
But  the  history  of  progress  in  every  science  and  no 
less  in  theology,  is  a  story  of  impulses  given,  corrected 
and  assimilated.     And  when  they  have  been  once  cor- 
rected and  assimilated,  these  truths  are  to  remain  ac- 
cepted.    It  is  then  time  for  another  impulse,  and  the 
condition  of  all  further  progress  is  to  place  ourselves 
in  this  well-marked  line  of  growth.      Astronomy,  for 
example,  has  had  such  a  history ;  and  there  are  now 
some  indisputable  truths  in  astronomy,    as,    for   in- 
stance,  the   rotundity  of  the   earth   and  the   central 
place  of  the  sun  in  our  system.      I  do  not  say  that 
these  truths  are  undisputed  ;   probably  nothing  is  any 
more  undisputed  in  astronomy,  or  any  other  science, 
than  in  theology.     At  all  events  he  who  wishes,  may 
read  the  elaborate  arguments  of  the  "Zetetic"  phi- 
losophers, as  they  love  to  call  themselves,  who  in  this 
year  of  grace  are  striving  to  prove  that  the  earth  is 
flat  and  occupies  the  centre  of  our  system.     Quite  in 
the  same  spirit,  there  are  "  Zetetic  "  theologians  who 
strive  with  similar  zeal  and  acuteness  to  overturn  the 
established  basal  truths  of  theology, — which,  how- 
ever,  can  -never  more   be  shaken  ;    and  we   should 
give  about  as  much  ear  to  them  in  the  one  science 
as  in  the  other.     It  is  utter  folly  to  suppose  that  prog- 
ress  can   be   made   otherwise   than   by   placing  our- 
selves in  the  line  of  progress ;  and  if  the  temple  of 
God's  truth  is  ever  to  be  completely  built,  we  must 
not  spend  our  efforts  in  digging  at  the  foundations 
which  have  been  securely  laid  in  the  distant  past,  but 
must  rather  give   our  best  efforts   to   rounding  the 
arches,  carving  the  capitals,  and  fitting  in  the  fretted 
roof.     What  if  it  is  not  ours  to  lay  foundations  ?     Let 


Considered  as  a  Science.  35 

us  rejoice  that  that  work  has  been  done  !  Happy  are 
Ave  if  our  God  will  permit  us  to  bring-  a  single  cap- 
stone into  place.  This  fabric  is  not  a  house  of  cards 
to  be  built  and  blown  down  again  an  hundred  times  a 
day,  as  the  amusement  of  our  idle  hours  :  it  is  a 
miracle  of  art  to  which  all  ao^es  and  lands  brine  their 
various  tribute.  The  subtile  Greek  laid  the  founda- 
tions ;  the  law-loving  Roman  raised  high  the  walls  ; 
and  all  the  perspicuity  of  France  and  ideality  of  Ger- 
many and  systematization  of  Holland  and  deep  so- 
briety of  Britain  have  been  expended  in  perfecting 
the  structure ;  and  so  it  grows.  We  have  heard 
much  in  these  last  days  of  the  phrase,  "  Progressive 
orthodoxy,"  and  in  somewhat  strange  connections. 
Nevertheless,  the  phrase  itself  is  not  an  inapt  descrip- 
tion of  the  buildinor  of  this  theolog-ical  house.  Let 
us  assert  that  the  history  of  theology  has  been  and 
ever  must  be  a  progressive  orthodoxy.  But  let  us 
equally  loudly  assert  that  progressive  orthodoxy  and 
retrogressive  heterodoxy  can  scarcely  be  convertible 
terms.  Progressive  orthodoxy  implies  that  first  of 
all  we  are  orthodox,  and  secondly  that  we  are  pro- 
gressively orthodox,  i.  e.,  that  we  are  ever  growing 
more  and  more  orthodox  as  more  and  more  truth 
is  being  established.  This  has  been  and  must 
be  the  history  of  the  advance  of  every  science,  and 
not  less,  among  them,  of  the  science  of  theology. 
Justin  Martyr,  champion  of  the  orthodoxy  of  his 
day,  held  a  theory  of  the  intertrinitarian  relationship 
which  became  heterodoxy  after  the  Council  of  Nice  ; 
the  ever-struesflinsf  Christoloeics  of  the  earlier  a^es 
were  forever  set  aside  by  the  Chalcedon  fathers ; 
Augustine  determined  for  all  time   the   doctrine  ^of 


o 


6  The  Idea  of  Systematic   Theology 


grace,  Anselm  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  Luther 
the  doctrine  of  forensic  justification.  In  any  pro- 
gressive science,  the  amount  of  departure  from  ac- 
cepted truth  which  is  possible  to  the  sound  thinker 
becomes  thus  ever  less  and  less,  in  proportion  as  in- 
vestigation and  study  result  in  the  progressive  estab- 
lishment of  an  ever  increasing  number  of  facts.  The 
physician  who  would  bring  back  to-day  the  medicine 
of  Galen  would  be  no  more  mad  than  the  theologian 
who  would  revive  the  theology  of  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria. Both  were  men  of  lio-ht  and  leadinof  in  their 
time  ;  but  their  time  is  past,  and  it  is  the  privilege  of  the 
child  of  to-day  to  know  a  sounder  physic  and  a  sounder 
theology  than  the  giants  of  that  far  past  yesterday 
could  attain.  It  is  of  the  very  essence  of  our  position 
at  the  end  of  the  ages  that  we  are  ever  more  and  more 
hedged  around  with  ascertained  facts,  the  discovery 
and  establishment  of  which  constitute  the  very  es- 
sence of  progress.  Progress  brings  progressive  limi- 
tation, just  because  it  brings  progressive  knowledge. 
And  as  the  orthodox  man  is  he  that  teaches  no  other 
doctrine  than  that  which  has  been  established  as  true  ; 
the  progressively  orthodox  man  is  he  who  is  quick  to 
perceive,  admit,  and  condition  all  his  reasoning  by  all 
the  truth  down  to  the  latest,  which  has  been  estab- 
lished as  true. 

VIII.  When  we  speak  of  progress  our  eyes  are  set 
upon  a  goal.  And  in  calling  theology  a  progressive 
science  we  unavoidably  raise  the  inquiry,  what  the 
end  and  purpose  is  toward  an  ever-increasing  fitness 
to  secure  which  it  is  continually  growing.  When  we 
consider  the  surpassing  glory  of  the  subject-matter 


Considered  as  a  Science.  2>7 

with  which  it  deals,  it  would  appear  that  if  ever  sci- 
ence existed  for  its  own  sake,  this  might  surely  be  true 
of  this  science.  The  truths  concerning  God  and  His 
relations  are,  above  all  comparison,  in  themselves  the 
most  worthy  of  all  truths  of  study  and  examination. 
Yet  we  must  vindicate  for  theology  rather  that  it  is 
an  eminently  practical  science.  The  contemplation 
and  exhibition  of  Christianity  as  truth,  is  far  from  the 
end  of  the  matter.  This  truth  is  specially  communi- 
cated by  God  for  a  purpose,  for  which  it  is  admirably 
adapted.  That  purpose  is  to  save  and  sanctify  the 
soul.  And  the  discovery,  study,  and  systematization 
of  the  truth  is  in  order  that,  firmly  grasping  it  and 
thoroughly  comprehending  it  in  all  its  reciprocal  rela- 
tions, we  may  be  able  to  make  the  most  efficient  use 
of  it  for  its  holy  purpose.  Well  worth  our  most  labori- 
ous study,  then,  as  it  is,  for  its  own  sake  as  mere 
truth  ;  it  becomes  not  only  absorbingly  interesting,  but 
inexpressibly  precious  to  us  when  we  bear  in  mind 
that  the  truth  with  which  we  thus  deal  constitutes,  as 
a  whole,  the  engrafted  Word  that  is  able  to  save  our 
souls.  The  task  of  thoroughly  exploring  the  pages 
of  revelation,  soundly  gathering  from  them  their  treas- 
ures of  theological  teaching  and  carefully  fitting  these 
into  their  due  places  in  a  system  whereby  they  may 
be  preserved  from  misunderstanding,  perversion,  and 
misuse,  and  given  a  new  power  to  convince  the  under- 
standing, move  the  heart,  and  quicken  the  will,  be- 
comes thus  a  holy  duty  to  our  own  and  our  brothers' 
souls  as  well  as  our  eager  pleasure  of  our  intellectual 
nature.  That  the  knowledge  of  the  truth  is  an  essen- 
tial prerequisite  to  the  production  of  those  graces  and 
the  building  up  of  those  elements  of  a  sanctilied  char- 


o 


8  The  Idea  of  Systematic    Theology 


acter  for  the  production  of  which  each  truth  is  especi- 
ally aaapted,  probably  no  one  denies  :  but  surely  it  is 
equally  true  that  the  clearer,  fuller,  and  more  dis- 
criminating this  knowledge  is,  the  more  certainly  and 
richly  will  it  produce  its  appropriate  effect ;  and  in  this 
is  found  a  most  complete  vindication  of  the  duty  of 
systematizing  the  separate  elements  of  truth  into  a 
single  soundly  concatenated  whole,  by  which  the 
essential  nature  of  each  is  made  as  clear  as  it  can  be 
made  to  human  apprehension.  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
indifference,  then,  how  we  apprehend  and  systematize 
this  truth.  On  the  contrary,  if  we  misconceive  it  in 
its  parts  or  in  its  relations,  not  only  do  our  views  of 
truth  become  confused  and  erroneous,  but  also  our 
religious  life  becomes  dwarfed  or  contorted.  The 
character  of  our  religion  is,  in  a  word,  determined  by 
the  character  of  our  theology :  and  thus  the  task  of 
the  systematic  theologian  is  to  see  that  the  relations 
in  which  the  separate  truths  actually  stand  are  rightly 
conceived,  in  order  that  they  may  exert  their  rightful 
influence  on  the  development  of  the  religious  life.  As 
no  truth  is  so  insignificant  as  to  have  no  place  in  the 
development  of  our  religious  life,  so  no  truth  is  so  un- 
important that  we  dare  neglect  it  or  deal  deceitfully 
with  it  in  adjusting  it  into  our  system.  We  are  smitten 
with  a  deadly  fear  on  the  one  side,  lest  by  fitting  them 
into  a  system  of  our  own  devising,  we  cut  from  them 
just  the  angles  by  which  they  were  intended  to  lay 
hold  of  the  hearts  of  men  :  but  on  the  other  side,  we 
are  filled  with  a  holy  confidence  that,  by  allowing  them 
to  frame  themselves  into  their  own  system  as  indicated 
by  their  own  natures, — as  the  stones  in  Solomon's  tem- 
ple were  cut  each  for  its  place, — we  shall  make  each 


Co7isidered  as  a  Science.  39 

available  for  all  men,  for  just  the  place  in  the  saving 
process  for  which  it  was  divinely  framed  and  divinely 
given. 

From  this  point  of  view  the  systematic  theologian 
is  pre-eminently  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel ;  and  the 
end  of  his  work  is  not  merely  the  logical  arrangement 
of  the  truths  which  come  under  his  hand,  but  the 
moving  of  men  through  their  power  to  love  God  with 
all  their  hearts,  and  their  neighbors  as  themselves  ;  to 
choose  their  portion  with  the  Saviour  of  their  souls ; 
to  find  and  hold  Him  precious  ;  and  to  recognize  and 
yield  to  the  sweet  influences  of  the  Holy  Spirit  whom 
He  has  sent.  With  such  truth  as  this  he  will  not  dare 
to  deal  in  a  cold  and  merely  scientific  spirit,  but  will 
justly  and  necessarily  permit  its  preciousness  and  its 
practical  destination  to  determine  the  spirit  in  which 
he  handles  it,  and  to  awaken  the  reverential  love  with 
which  alone  he  should  investigate  its  reciprocal  rela- 
tions. For  this  he  needs  to  be  suffused  at  all  times 
with  a  sense  of  the  unspeakable  worth  of  the  revela- 
tion which  lies  before  him  as  the  source  of  his  ma- 
terial, and  with  the  personal  bearings  of  its  separate 
truths  on  his  own  heart  and  life  ;  he  needs  to  have 
had  and  to  be  having  a  full,  rich,  and  deep  religious 
experience  of  the  great  doctrines  with  which  he  deals  ; 
he  needs  to  be  living  close  to  his  God,  to  be  resting 
always  on  the  bosom  of  his  Redeemer,  to  be  filled  at 
all  times  with  the  manifest  influences  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  The  teacher  of  systematic  theology  needs  a 
very  sensitive  religious  nature,  a  most  thoroughly 
consecrated  heart,  and  an  outpouring  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  upon  him,  such  as  will  fill  him  with  that  spirit- 
ual discernment,  without  which  all  native  intellect  is 


40  The  Idea  of  Systematic   Theology. 

in  vain.  He  needs  to  be  not  merely  a  student,  not 
merely  a  thinker,  not  merely  a  systematizer,  not  merely 
a  teacher, — he  needs  to  be  like  the  beloved  disciple 
himself  in  the  highest,  truest  and  holiest  sense,  a 
divine. 

Fathers  and  Brethren,  as  I  speak  these  words, 
my  heart  fails  me  in  a  deadly  anxiety.  "  Who  is 
sufficient  for  these  things  ?  "  it  cries  to  me  in  a  true 
dismay.  We  all  remember  how  but  a  short  decade 
ago  one  stood  in  this  place  where  I  now  stand,  who, 
in  the  estimation  of  us  all,  was  richly  provided  by 
nature  and  grace  for  the  great  task  which  now  lies 
before  me,  but  which  then  lay  before  him.  "  Alas  ! 
sirs,"  said  he,  with  a  humility  which  was  character- 
istic of  his  chastened  and  noble  soul, — "  Alas  !  sirs, 
when  I  think  of  myself,  I  often  cry,  '  Woe  is  me,  that 
such  an  one  as  I,  should  be  called  to  inherit  the  re- 
sponsibilities descending  in  such  a  line.'  And  when 
I  think  of  the  Church,  I  cry  with  a  far  sorer  wonder, 
'  What  times  are  these,  when  such  a  man  as  I  should 
be  made  to  stand  in  such  a  place  ? '  "  With  far  more 
reason  may  I  be  allowed  to  echo  these  words  to-day. 
With  far  more  need  may  I  demand  now,  as  he  de- 
manded then,  your  prayers  for  me,  that  in  "the  ser- 
vice to-day  inaugurated,  God's  strength  may  be  made 
perfect  in  my  weakness." 


v^ii* 


;^:^ 


'.•.  .•«/ 


h9* 


